HPU Baseball Earns No. 3 Seed in 2013 Big South Baseball Championship

HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University baseball team earned the No. 3 seed in the 2013 Big South Baseball Championship and will face No. 6-seed Gardner-Webb in the first round of the tournament on Tuesday, May 21, in Lynchburg, Va. The No. 3 seed earned by HPU is the Panthers’ highest seed in the program’s Div. I history.

High Point finished the 2013 Big South season with a 15-9 record, its best-ever record in Big South play. HPU’s 15 conference wins matches the most Big South games won by the team in any one season. High Point previously won 15 games in 2010 when it finished 15-12. The Panthers also finished the regular season with an overall record of 29-27, just their second overall winning record in the regular season since joining Div. I in 2000.

HPU took two out of three games against Gardner-Webb at home in the team’s regular-season series. The two teams split the first two games with High Point winning, 3-1, in the first and GWU winning, 4-3, in the second. The Panthers won the rubber match, 5-4, in 11 innings, scoring twice in the 11th inning to come from behind for the win.

Campbell, the Big South North Division Champions, won its first Big South Baseball Regular-Season Championship with a 19-5 Big South record. The Camels will enter next week’s conference tournament with the No. 1 seed.

Coastal Carolina won the Big South’s South Division Championship to earn the No. 2 seed in the Big South Championship. The Chanticleers finished the season with an 18-6 Big South record. Radford finished at No. 4 with a 14-10 Conference mark. Liberty picked up the No. 5 seed with its 13-11 Big South record and Gardner-Webb’s 12-11 conference record was good for No. 6. Longwood garnered the No. 7 slot after finishing the Big South season at 12-12. Charleston Southern rounds out the seeds at No. 8 with an 11-13 record in Conference action.

The 2013 Big South Baseball Championship features the top eight teams in the League regardless of Division and will be played on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. The tournament begins on Tuesday, May 21 and ends with the Big South Championship game on May 25. The Championship will air on the Big South Network, with the winner take all championship game airing exclusively on ESPN3. The Big South’s Tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Baseball Championship. The Conference Championship schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, May 21
Game 1: #2 Coastal Carolina vs. #7 Longwood, 9:30am
Game 2: #3 High Point vs. #6 Gardner-Webb, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 1
Game 3: #1 Campbell vs. #8 Charleston Southern, 4:30pm
Game 4: #4 Radford vs. #5 Liberty, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 3

Wednesday, May 22
Game 5: Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 9:30am
Game 6: Loser Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 5
Game 7: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 4:30pm
Game 8: Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 7

Thursday, May 23
Game 9: Winner Game 5 vs. Loser Game 7, 3:00pm
Game 10: Winner Game 6 vs. Loser Game 8, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 9 |

Friday, May 24
Game 11: Winner Game 8 vs. Winner Game 9, 10:00am
Game 12: Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 10, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 11
Game 13: if necessary, 5:00pm
Game 14: if necessary, 45 minutes after conclusion of Game 13

Saturday, May 25 – Championship Game
TBA vs. TBA, 4:00pm (TV: ESPN3)